“Great, now the library is going to come after me, too!”
Untold Tales Of Spider-Man #1
Marvel Comics (September, 1995, as reprinted in Spider-Man Family)
“To Serve And Protect?”
WRITER: Kurt Busiek
PENCILER: Pat Olliffe
INKER: Al Vey, though the Grand Comics Database notes that in issue #3 there was a correction, adding Pam Eklund
COLORIST: Steve Mattsson
LETTERING: Comicraft
EDITOR: Tom Brevoort
Catch more Billium on his YouTube channel.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Scrappy gets too much blame when the problem was how these seasons were written. Season one was basically a continuation of The Scooby-Doo Show and some of my favorite mysteries came from these two seasons. It was when the mysteries disappeared that the show went downhill. As I’ve mentioned in the comic review, the franchise is built on being a mystery show for kids that kids could try to solve along with the gang. Scrappy didn’t lead to this being dropped, Hanna-Barbera or ABC did. Sadly the first season of Daphne’s return still had the shorter segments and the mysteries weren’t as good until later on…and then it was all ruined by The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo, which sent the franchise into TV movie territory until A Pup Named Scooby-Doo revitalized it and the direct-to-video movies got it back on course.
Usually I post the first comic, but last year I remade it to see how far I’ve come. And I’ve come pretty far since this comic began, even before I switched to digital art. Jake & Leon started as an experiment in an art style and then became the comic that opened my weekly comic reviews on Sunday. When I switched to daily reviews so I didn’t spend my Sunday writing a very long article I switched to a list of articles I came across that week I thought readers would find interesting…which I now also do daily but with the occasional video instead. So I just gave them the Sunday spot. It’s usually a quick and easy style to draw, though since this comic I’ve also improved on adding backgrounds and designing sets. This has also improved the comic.
Some days I rush more than others and it shows in the art but hopefully the comic does give someone a little smile, which I think we all needed more this year than last year. And that’s kind of a problem, too. While the comic’s year goes from October 26th to October 25 of the following calendar year, the majority of comics this year either surrounded the 2020 plague, the riots, or pushing back against all that with the longest story arc I’ve done for this comic, Herodude & Enemies #1. Still, before I begin year 12 I want to look back at how my 11th year was marred by 2020’s suckage and see if I can find some good strips that for one reason or another I found to be some of my favorites of the comic year.
We always thought Harley was pretty spaced out.
Justice League Unlimited #41
DC Comics (March, 2008)
“The Anniversary Party”
WRITER: Grace Randolph
ARTIST: Dario Brizuela
COLORING: Heroic Age
LETTERER: Randy Gentile
EDITOR: Rachel Gluckstern
Catch more Perch on his YouTube channel.
If you want an idea of what Zot! was like Scott McCloud did post a webcomic story on his site.
I was going to have a comic this week but after I took a nap yesterday my wrist starting hurting. I must have slept on it wrong and the same thing happened last night. I can function but I’m not sure I can draw today, so no comic this week. I was able to get my review of GoBots Crasher done for The Clutter Reports though.
However, there will be Jake & Leon content tomorrow, celebrating the 12th year of the comic with a look back at the 11th year, the year the 2020 plague made us miserable (and still is). That means the next Chapter By Chapter review of BattleTech: I Am Jade Falcon will be moved to Tuesday and we’ll see what I come up with during the week. And hopefully my wrist will be healed so I can actual get a comic out next week. Have a good week everyone!
A long time ago in a previous Saturday Night Showcase I brought you the first two episodes of Defenders Of The Earth, a show where King Features Syndicate brought together some of their greatest action heroes. Flash Gordon, Mandrake The Magician and his loyal companion Lothar, and the Phantom (though this being set in the future they jumped to the 27th Phantom…which doesn’t explain how Mandrake and Lothar are there since Lothar is a mortal even if Mandrake isn’t) joined together to face Ming The Merciless. Each brought their own kids while Dale was turned into the supercomputer Dynak-X. (Long story…two episodes worth in fact.) While Hulu, where I got the embeds from originally, stopped doing embeds for websites (thus dropping one of the features that benefited their sites…they get the ad revenue, I get the readers and no money) I recently learned that King Features created their own “Comics Kingdom” YouTube channel. The name comes from their online comic strip archive.
Through this channel I was able to update the Saturday Night Showcase entries on the Saturday Morning Flash Gordon cartoon I grew up with and is still my favorite Sat AM show (at least in season one), as well as The Legend Of Prince Valiant, the Family Channel series adapting that comic. Sadly they don’t have Phantom: 2040 up there as of this writing, so to highlight this channel I have another Defenders Of The Earth episode, which actually guest-stars Prince Valiant and his son Arn (named for his friend as seen in TLOPV). In this episode Ming tricks the Defenders into a time warp with a mutant parasite monster to destroy Earth and his enemies in one shot. The heroes team with Valiant and Arn to stop the monster as well as rescue Valiant’s wife from an evil sorcerer seeking the power of the Eternity Stone. I didn’t even remember this episode existed. Enjoy!
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
